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Welcome to my website!

I love local and family history. My own family research started when I was a child. I asked my Dad to help me draw a family tree, but we didn’t get very far. His was a large family and they all ‘just mucked in together’ – he hardly knew the difference between his step-brothers and his cousins. I have since discovered that my extended family ranged from Chirk in North Wales, Shropshire, Norwich, Ipswich, Kent, Orkney and as far as Canada, where a couple of great aunts were sent as ‘home children’. My family book can be found on the Family History pages.

During my 25-year career in IT, I managed software implementation projects in pharmaceutical, banking, field service and credit management industries. The most memorable and enjoyable project was the ‘Viking’ implementation of SAP at Hoechst Marion Roussel (now Sanofi) with my skilful in-house team aided by a bunch of Druids. Our Viking ship was launched with a rousing rendition of ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’. An enduring interest in my IT career was producing professional business presentations and documentation, including a Project Manager’s Handbook. I edited a project newsletter illustrated with funny cartoon Viking characters and I was a member of the Editorial Board for an in-house magazine.

I completed an MSc in English Local History with Oxford University in 2011. Course work included elite kinship, culture and community, sources in the medieval and early modern periods, and crime and punishment with fascinating studies of female convicts sent to Australia. I studied the impact of transport systems on late Georgian Berkhamsted for my dissertation. You can find information and links on the Local History pages.

Self-employed for a while, I researched family histories for about 40 paying clients. I also developed websites for small businesses and charities. Over the years I have taken roles as secretary and archivist on the committee of the Berkhamsted Local History & Museum Society.

Now retired and spending several weeks each year in Portugal, I’m still researching and writing about Berkhamsted’s local history. In time for the centenary of Armistice Day in 2018, I contributed to the Society’s two books featuring the young men who died in WWI and their families on the home front, now just £5 each + P&P.